A lot of people have asked if Social Security checks would be paid if the U.S. defaults on its debt. Lawrence O’Donnell has a great overview.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Since we’ve never had a default that affected the entire economy (we had a close call in 1979), we don’t really know who would be paid and who would not. People who say spending can be prioritized if we default have no procedure, precedent or law backing up their position.

Nor do the government’s automated systems operate that way. No one sits down and writes out all those checks. Most are automatically direct deposited into millions of accounts on the days they are scheduled. It’s not even clear if the system could be legally altered and prioritized.

The worst problem that would be caused by a default is the devastating affect it would have on our own economy, and on the world economy. It would plunge us back into a recession, if not a second Great Depression. And we would take the entire world down with us.

The debt ceiling is not an ideological concept. It’s real money and real math. The Republicans apparently can’t do math.

Technorati Tags: Ben Bernanke, debt ceiling myths, Ezra Klein, Lawrence O'Donnell, national debt ceiling, U.S. Treasury

On August 19, 2010 in the early morning local time in Iraq (evening of August 18 in the U.S.), the last battalion of the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry division, was on its way home. They traveled in Stryker combat vehicles in a convoy to Kuwait where they had their documents checked and their possessions checked for contraband as soon as they crossed the Kuwait border. There are a few thousand more combat troops who will be leaving over the next several days.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The convoy proceeded to Camp Virginia in Kuwait, and from there, military personnel will fly home to the U.S. Their retrievable equipment will be loaded aboard ships to the U.S. A great deal of the equipment our military brought to Iraq will remain there.

These are the last of the combat troops. The first combat troops to leave began withdrawing about a year ago.

Most wars in modern times, meaning ever since the end of World War II, are often entered into for political reasons and are ended or drawn down by political agreements or decisions, not whether we won or lost a military victory.

The only wars we’ve fought during my lifetime (born 1960) that were predicated by attacks of an aggressor are the Gulf war in 1991 and the Afghanistan war after we were attacked on American soil by al-Qaeda on 9/11/2001.

The end of the first Gulf war was decided when Saddam Hussein and his troops were driven out of Kuwait back to Baghdad. Some U.S. forces remained behind to enforce sanctions against Iraq and keep Iraq within its borders.

The only military victory I can foresee in the Afghanistan war is the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden, and perhaps his next highest ranking subordinate. Leaving Afghanistan won’t happen until NATO forces reach specific goals, like the Afghan army and police can handle security without our help, and/or many towns and cities have reestablished government and services, and provide a better choice than the Taliban.

Or, we may reach our target deadline and pull out before “conditions on the ground” criteria are fully met. The fact is we can’t hold the Afghans’ hand forever. They have to step up and take charge at some point. Us leaving will force them to do so, which is what is happening in Iraq right now.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Even though this is a politically agreed upon troop withdrawal, it isn’t time for politics. It’s time to be thankful that our brave men and women are coming home, and to remember that 4,415 U.S. troops didn’t make it home from Iraq alive.

This brings to my mind the end of the Vietnam War, and that my parents kept us home from school that morning in 1975 to watch it on TV. My dad was in the Navy then, and he called his commanding officer to get permission to stay home with us to discuss the significance and gravity of that event. We were teenagers and they felt it was very important that we understand what was happening and why.

It’s time to remember that we have a large number of battle-hardened war veterans reentering civilian life who will need care, our support and our help. We the people need to help make sure our veterans are getting what they need, whether it be their GI bill benefits for college, job placement assistance, or medical and psychiatric treatment from the VA.

It’s time to remember that some of these troops will be retrained, re-equipped and redeployed to Afghanistan in as few as 6 months.

It’s also time to remember that 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq to assist and support the Iraqi army and police, and to work with the U.S. State Department to rebuild a successful Iraqi government and society. We are pulling combat troops out without Iraq having established a fully functional government, which I will discuss in another article. Iraq is still a very dangerous place. Combat may be over, but the possibility of violence and more American deaths is very real.

Operation Iraqi Freedom won’t officially end until the ceremony on August 31, 2010. The mission then changes to Operation New Dawn, one of training and support with “non-combat” troops. That’s kind of an oxymoron to me. A military troop is by definition capable of combat. The U.S. State Department will take over, and the Defense Department will end primary control of non-combat operations.

Technorati Tags: Iraq war, Keith Olbermann, Lawrence O'Donnell, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn, Rachel Maddow, Richard Engel NBC Chief Foreign Correspondent, U.S. Forces draw down

Liz Cheney is at it again. Her new web ad about the Obama justice department and attorneys who have represented or advocated for Guantanamo detainees questions their values and loyalty to the U.S. Are they really al-Qaeda sympathizers? No, they are not. They are just doing their jobs.

Ms. Cheney is playing the “guilt-by-association” card. There is a really big problem once you go down that path, extremely twisted logic. The following clip from The Rachel Maddow Show demonstrates taking guilt-by-association to its full conclusion (7 min.). The question is where do you stop? How far down the rabbit hole do you go?

Queue the scary music:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Be afraid!!! Are you scared?

Using Liz Cheney’s logic, aren’t all defense attorneys criminals if they defend guilty people in court? No. Our Constitution guarantees presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the accused are entitled to a vigorous defense. What about the attorney who defended Timothy McVeigh? Is he a terrorist sympathizer, too? No.

Defending the guilty is an integral part of our justice system. It’s the American way. It’s one of our founding principals. We can’t abandon those principals because we are dealing with foreign detainees whose arrests were botched. Botched arrests happen regularly, not quite like these, but they are not new. We have the processes to deal with it.

Let’s allow the DOJ to go forward and prosecute the detainees against whom we have reasonable evidence. We know our court system is far more effective than military tribunals. Here’s the score: Federal court system: 300 convictions of terrorist suspects since 2001; military tribunal system: 2 convictions.

Even Republicans and Conservatives are saying Cheney’s ad goes too far. It steps way over the line of reason when Bill O’Reilly of Fox News won’t even agree with her. The following clip from Countdown explores the legal and moral outrage over this web ad (7 min.):

I have to hope Liz Cheney keeps up her conspiracy witch hunts in public for as long as she wants. When it makes Conservatives back away from her, it’s possible for the moderates to move left just a bit and get back to the middle where moderates like to be.

When fear-mongers start to sound like loons to those who are already ideologically extreme, they are finally being seen in the correct light.

Do you buy Liz Cheney and Keep America Safe’s bullpucky on this? If not, what other fear-mongering crap do you now question about what they have said?

If it’s a Cheney talking, I must admit I won’t believe a word of it because whatever “it” is that any of them are saying comes out of irrational fear of another terrorist attack on the U.S. Future terrorist attacks are possible, but so was nuclear war during the entire cold war. You can’t live your life in constant fear of what might happen. If we cower in fear, the terrorists win.

I wonder if the Cheney home is equipped with a fully stocked bomb shelter and survival gear…

BTW, Rachel posted bail with Kent Jones in the amount of slices of pizza, and borrowed the handcuffs from Jimmy Fallon. She was back on her show the next night.

Technorati Tags: al-Qaeda, Countdown, David Corn, Guantanamo Bay prison, guilt by association, Lawrence O'Donnell, Liz Cheney, MSNBC, Obama Administration, Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show, U.S. department of justice